Discovering New Worlds

It’s Columbus Day again, and the thought of discovering new worlds both delights and amuses me. Of course CC was not the first person on this continent, or even the first European–-Leif Erikson and other seafaring Caucasians almost certainly hold that distinction–-yet the quaint notion remains that our intrepid captain with his three little ships discovered America. Mistakenly, he took it for part of the spice-laden Asian Indies that he and his royal Portuguese patrons coveted and sought to connect with for trade purposes. Columbus did of course open a new era of history with his arrival in the Caribbean islands in 1492, and subsequent voyages.

Isn’t it like discovering living spiri, wisdom, enlightenment, nirvana–-or even heaven, the paradise so many are looking for, or even God? It’s not really as far away as we think, and we mistakenly believe it to be somewhere else even while it remains beneath our feet, and within and around us already. We may feel far from it but I assure you that it is never far from us. And many have already found and discovered it. It is not about seeing different things or going to distant climes, but of seeing differently.